Coincidentally, following Robin's last blog in which he mentioned starlings, there was something Hitchcock-like about our village this Tuesday (8th Dec), when hundreds of them descended on us. I've no idea if they were everywhere in Laroque but they were certainly concentrated around the small estate where I live. There seemed to be several flocks, constantly on the move from roof to tree to roof to tree throughout the day. I'm used to hearing a small group noisily bed down in a neighbour's eucalyptus every winter, but don't remember ever seeing them in such numbers.

So what was so special about here?

I haven't found anything useful on the internet to explain this kind of behaviour, and can only come up with two possible explanations - neither of which seems satisfactory. My first thought was that they must have been attracted by a food source, and flocks from near and far had followed someone's lead. But our gardens are relatively small and, although at times ten or so birds were eating olives off my little tree and probing the grass for grubs and worms, an invasion on this scale must have been sparked by a glut of something much more enticing. I have no idea what. My second thought was that they were migrants - new arrivals from Russia or similar cold climes. I'd have thought it a bit late for that now, but who knows?

I suppose a third possibility is that they simply felt like it. Perhaps they do the rounds of all the villages and it was just our turn. Here are some, in distinctive silhouette.

City dwellers will be all too familiar with the sight and sound of starlings en masse, but it was quite an event for us. Un véritable spectacle! It was noisy, and also risky to venture outdoors: Purple droppings were landing everywhere.

Robin has reminded me that he witnessed a similar phenomenon near Céret this time last year. His Winter Starlings and Strawberries blog of 17th December captures the atmosphere precisely.

Meanwhile, Isobel took the super shot below of a single starling on a different occasion. They aren't usually crested! Its mohican hairdo is due to the tramontane blowing that day. And those smart white spots will disappear when it gets its summer plumage. This one's a male - distinguished by the flush of blue at the base of the bill. In females it's pink!And aren't starlings kings when it comes to imitating other birds (as well as car alarms)? Click on the picture for about a three minute repertoire from one or two in our oak tree this morning. (The collared doves in the background are real ones, incidentally.) I've made a tentative ID of at least six birds in this clip - golden oriole being the most recognisable. Every winter I'm fooled at least once by this, or mistake it for the first oriole to return in spring. There are so many other strange clicks and whistles that it's impossible to tell where the starling's own call or "song" begins and ends. And of course any foreign ones might also be imitating birds we're unfamiliar with.

One thing's for sure though: they are the gossips of the bird world.

On Tuesday, as dusk approached, I was sure I could see distant flocks building, down towards the vineyards and orchards between Laroque and Palau del Vidre. In anticipation of being treated to that swirling, twisting aerial display - "murmuration" is the technical term - I quickly drove down there. It took about seven minutes.

Not a starling to be seen or heard. Never mind, I was treated to a pretty sunset instead.

By the time I returned home they'd gone from there too and, so far, they haven't been back. Mystère.

On country walks I'm usually on the lookout for movement in trees, shrubs and sky. But there isn't much going on at this time of year in my regular haunts. Or it so it seems. And before I know it I'm drifting along a familiar route, lost in thought about a scene in the novel I'm writing, or worrying that the washing machine is dead and not just on strike, or wondering if I'll get Christmas cards written in time - and I'm focusing on little except where I'm putting my feet.

While that can be a useful meditation, I can miss an awful lot. So today I took my camera with me and also took my time, stopping regularly to look more closely at my surroundings.

To pay attention.

Here's a tour of a few things I noticed in a half mile stretch either side of a quiet lane.

Lichens and mosses thrive where there's little or no sun from autumn to late spring.

Fifty shades of green?

Around the bend and above the lane, trees have been left where they've fallen.The perfect habitat for beetles and other insects (snakes too?).Worth a careful explore next summer.

Something's been hacking bark off cork oaks. Unlikely to be humans mucking about (some is out of reach). Woodpeckers? Maybe, but there are so many nuthatches here, they're my prime suspects. My book doesn't list insect grubs as part of their diet, but that must be what they're after here? Certainly you can often hear them tapping at branches and trunks. And...

... they also use cork oaks to help them hatch those nuts! I've watched one wedge an acorn in a crack in the bark and bash it repeatedly to get at that delicious soft centre. Sometimes it drew its head back, only to find the acorn stuck on its beak, and angrily rammed it back into the crack to free itself. Head back ... Bash. Head back ... Bash. The acorn didn't stand a chance. Here's the evidence, in what must be a favourite tree:

Roots follow water, through near-solid rock.

And other things are managing to excavate and live in there. Mice? Or bigger creatures? Weasels?

This wild cherry has been dying all year. But it's being colonised by other life now.

After egg laying by moths in October,new "candyfloss" nests of pine processionary caterpillars are just beginning to show.

Plants frazzled to a crisp in the summer are making a comeback in the damp conditions

Old cones and new growth.Behind: autumn coloured leaves cling onto some trees. It's still too warm.

A few flowers broke up the greenery: Yellow daisy-like things; a single sprig of purple heather; early blooms of gorse and mimosa. And I ate a couple of ripe fruit from a strawberry tree (not much flavour).

I wasn't walking in complete silence either. Although most of the more musical birds have stopped singing or are wintering in Africa, I could still hear the rather sad call of robins. There was the occasional chwit-chwit of a nuthatch; a distant great spotted woodpecker; a buzzard somewhere overhead; great tits; squeaks of what might have been goldcrests...

There wasn't much to smell (not even dead leaves) and I didn't touch - except for the fruit, and dewy grass when I slid gracelessly onto my bottom while photographing the fungi! - however it's worth consciously using at least four senses in the natural world. Even in the winter. At first glance it may seem very still out there - but it's still life, so that's okay.

Especially if you have lived, as Martine and I have, in the far North of Scotland, you can find the climate here hard to believe; until well after the middle of November, the weather was better than the average British summer (let alone that of 2015!), and, over a short period, I decided I must take full advantage of it. The intention was to explore the extremes of our wonderful area, from (close to) the highest point, down to sea-level.

So, one weekend, I went up to the high foothills of Canigou, to the Tour de la Batere, one of our favourite places. It was comparatively busy, with a few of what I think are called para-gliders, and some spectators, which may be the reason why I saw no marmots. And there were almost no wildflowers, either, which was hardly surprising; the exception was one single gentian, small but vividly blue. The groups of horses, cows and sheep, all very discrete and self-contained, were roaming the hillsides, still grazing and maintaining the short turf which allows such flowers to flourish up here.

I had a lovely walk around, the air was brilliantly clear, but saw few birds apart from the occasional black redstart flitting between the rocks. When I returned to the car, a raven flew overhead, at first simply doing its usual “cronk, cronk“. Then the call speeded up, and sounded more alarmed, so I looked for it in the binoculars. What I could then see was that the raven, large and impressive ‘though it was, was being harried by a falcon of some sort. This bird did look surprisingly small beside the raven, but was quite heavy in build, anchor-shaped, and made repeated dives at the other. I came to the conclusion that it was a young peregrine, simply having fun, just trying out its skills at the expense of the larger bird. Had it been early summer, breeding-time, I am sure it would have been pursuing the raven with a vengeance, and I would have heard its high, angry, rasping call. I did wonder idly whether it would have a sally at the para-gliders, one of which was sailing silently by, but that never happened.

Alerted by Lesley that she had heard a distant group of cranes, I also made a few visits to the Etang, right down on the coast, (and, originally, presumably, an inlet of the sea). The weather, although still fine, was windy, and in such conditions, according to the invaluable Albera book, the cranes may shelter in the Etangs. From the hillock about which we were writing at the time of the spring migrations, you get a fine view over part of the water, the marshes proper, and some cut, but clearly wet, meadow, surely the perfect habitat for migrating cranes. So it may be, but on the occasions I visited, there were none to be seen or heard. The flamingos were tucked into the relative shelter of a bay, cormorants still flying around, herons lurking in the tall, marsh grasses, but there were no cranes. True, a most obliging, (and very dark) marsh harrier made its appearance, and I had wonderful views as it flew low over the long grasses and reeds.

I did in fact, one day, see a crane; a single bird, spotted briefly as I was driving to St. Nazaire and the hillock. I had a good enough view to be sure that it was a crane, and to speculate that it might be a juvenile, because of its rather indistinct markings, but it disappeared behind a hedge and that was the last I managed to see of it! Perhaps it was a young bird which had become separated from a larger, migrating group in the tramontane, or perhaps it was the last of a flock which was descending into a field beyond the impenetrable hedge - tantalising!

During one of these days by the Etang, I was reminded how attractive the most common birds can be. I was close to the Fishermen’s Huts across the water from the hillock, and it was very windy-as it so often seems to be there. Not much was visible apart from a small group of starlings, working their way over the ground, close to me. These were all adults, and I was reminded how dramatic their markings actually are when looked at closely. We take them for granted, perhaps, but they do look remarkably exotic when studied. Here's one that Isobel captured with her camera on a different day.

Now that something vaguely like winter has come, and there is snow on Canigou, the tits have come into the garden in some numbers, and the same is true of them, especially perhaps of the little blue tit, which is, in fact, much brighter than most books show; study it carefully, and you will come to the conclusion that it would not look out of place in the forests of Costa Rica. The commonplace can be astonishingly beautiful.

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